True story: I was teaching geography to French freshman university students, and it took them a while to figure out that when I said "inundation" (with French pronunciation), I actually meant "inondation." Seriously kids, no imagination?? Compared to other Americans, my foreign accent is not even that strong (French people know I'm foreign but can't tell which country I come from).

Also true story: They seemed to understand the rest of the semester in spite of my certainly imperfect French, and French people have been generally kind and forgiving of my accent so long as I'm careful not to trigger memories from their traumatic high school English classes (i.e. just be humble and polite if you speak English with them!).

This happens with most languages I think. I've had the same problem in spanish, greek and swedish. I remember the first time with spanish, I was trying to say "ajo" which means "garlic" and I tried every kind of way to say it. Aro, arro, ajo, alo, aho... The guy was making no effort at all. It's a short word, how many words in spanish can there possibly be that have two syllabs, begins with the sound a and ends with the sound o, seriously? I had to google a picture of garlic so that the guy could understand it, then he said "ajo" in the exact same way I had said it first.

Some people really don't make efforts to try to understand you, they expect you to speak their language flawlessly... Freacking annoys me.

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ITCHY FEET is the weekly web comic about travel, life in foreign countries, and learning new languages. Readers can expect an astonishing array of exaggerated facial expressions, humorous situations involving foreigners and foreign lands, and ordinary silliness.